March 25, 2019

I read. I don't watch the news on TV. But if I wanted to laugh at these people in their ludicrous scrambling for dignity and a way to keep hating on Trump, I'd watch it on TV. I'd do what you can see Scott Adams doing in this video, watch them on TV and laugh at them. Look at their faces! They're so unhappy! But — maybe a bit like Trump himself, with his cheerful simple tweets this morning — I don't want to get bogged down in their dismal, entropic experience. It's too time-consuming. I watched a little. Laughed a little. But my thing is blogging, and I mostly use text.

But I scan the headlines and I pretty much know what's in the text. I don't drop into reading unless my senses tell me there's some rich material. And I feel that I already know the Trump haters' talking points about the Mueller report and Barr's letter about it. I'm not putting my time into counting the repetition of talking points I already know. If I applied myself, I could go deep — oh, so deep! — into all the perseveration about the word "exonerate." Do you know that the word means to relieve of a burden (an onus)? I am lightening my load by not reading all that stuff.

“Nobody wants to hear this, but news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller is headed home without issuing new charges is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media,” Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi wrote in a column published Saturday, a day before Barr nailed the collusion coffin shut. He added: “Nothing Trump is accused of from now on by the press will be believed by huge chunks of the population.”...

Journalist and commentator Glenn Greenwald — a longtime skeptic of the collusion angle — tweeted his contempt for the media coverage on Sunday, too: “Check every MSNBC personality, CNN law ‘expert,’ liberal-centrist outlets and #Resistance scam artist and see if you see even an iota of self-reflection, humility or admission of massive error.... While standard liberal outlets obediently said whatever they were told by the CIA & FBI, many reporters at right-wing media outlets which are routinely mocked by super-smart liberals as primitive & propagandistic did relentlessly great digging & reporting.”...

“Russiagate” has been a news media obsession since Trump’s victory in November 2016.... The cable news networks, particularly CNN and MSNBC, have added hundreds of hours of discussion about the topic, too. The story undoubtedly was an important factor in shaping voters’ perceptions before the 2018 midterm election, in which Democrats won control of the House. But the conclusion of the inquiry has put a question once hazily debated into sharp focus: Did the mainstream news media mislead?..

I call fake news on the assertion that the question is just coming into focus! The question has been there all along, but the Trump-resistance media has deliberately blurred it and actively diverted us from it. I don't even want to spend my time watching this phony hand-wringing over what went wrong. Either you did it on purpose or you're so insane and incompetent that you're not worth reading at all.

165 comments:

Worth mentioning: blogging and focusing on text is a way to push back on the The Great Stupiding (the elevation of feelings above evidence and logic). The media could only keep this stuff up because they are theatrical.

One of the truly disturbing things about the Matt Taibbi article is that he identifies numerous walkbacks by "sources" and "journalists" that never made the mainstream press. I knew about most of them because they came up here.

Essentially, the mainstream press ghettoized the reporters who were actually digging up the rabbit holes.

Taibbi earned my respect for his long-running Rolling Stone effort to call out the Obama Treasury Department for their misuse of stimulus funds.

But the number of Taibbi's, Greenwalds, and Dershowitzes out there is a single digit number. 3.

"I don't even want to spend my time watching this phony hand-wringing over what went wrong. Either you did it on purpose or you're so insane and incompetent that you're not worth reading at all. "--See NYT's lame (and insincere) mea culpa 11/2016

DJT is about to leverage this mother of all snafus into a defense to the Dems #1 tool which has been their fraudulent methods of Counting the ballots or not counting the ballots which allows them to rig the elections. As I recall, Soros has dumped billions into winning the Secretary of State posts in key states. He has paid for them all to become mini-Broward Counties.

We have some friends/acquaintances who are extremely liberal, whereas we are rather conservative or libertarian in most points of view. Previously, we could have genuine conversations together. Express some different viewpoints and have friendly debates.

Now...since TDS (Orange Man Bad!!!!) has stricken them, they are bitter, sour, unhappy, combative, argumentative, illogical, obsessed with Trump, obsessed with Russia and all the other Left Wing weirdness. They have become just plain crazy. They are unpleasant to be around.

I don't surround myself with negative people. So, we are still cordial when meeting in public, but avoid them as much as possible. I hope someday they will regain sanity.

Why is "right wing " media called "right wing media" but no one on the left calls out their own side as "leftwing media"?

Fox news is far more impartial and fair and honest than ANY leftwing media source. and the leftwing media sources are numerous. Leftwing media apologists refuse to call the leftwing media what it is - "The leftwing media."

CNN and MSNBC ARE "leftwing media." Worse, They ARE and ARM to the democrat party. Worse, they lie to their fawning audiences and do their fawning audiences no favors.

Althouse admits: But I scan the headlines and I pretty much know what's in the text.

With all due respect, this is a serious mistake. Nowadays, headlines, rather than providing succinct summaries of articles, are used to spin the items in the preferred direction and sometimes even totally misrepresent what is written in the text. The news editors know that most people only scan headlines. Try reading the entire text. You may be surprised to find that the article bears little congruence to the affixed headline.

I live in the bay area and can tell work today is going to be like being in a morgue. They really didn't see it coming and those are the blows that hurt. I am kind of mean and enjoy watching the Bagdad Bob's in the media further debase themselves and their profession by pretending they didn't fall down and rip their pants to expose soiled, poka dot underwear.

"Nobody wants to hear this, but news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller is headed home without issuing new charges is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media"

I certainly wouldn't say that nobody wants to hear that. There's certainly no shortage of people who want to see the main stream media recieve a richly deserved comeuppance.

It's only self deluded bubble dwellers who don't want to hear that. It's only the people who seem to derive nurishment from all the false narratives spun up by the various news outlets. It's only the people who should probably know better but instead give in to their hatred (to paraphrase Emperor Palpatine) and indulge in fantasies put forth by talking heads on pannel shows who "don't want to hear that".

I don't like gloating. I don't think it's persuasive. I think it drives people away than brings them to your side of the argument. But I just hope that people at least learn something from all this. You don't have to like Trump, but you should at least attempt to live in the real world. You shouldn't just accept whatever the media tells you uncritically just because it confirms your biases so neatly. Try to be more skeptical.

Make every Democratic Candidate 2020 answer questions about whether they would accept being subject to the exact same thing. Make them tell us what they think about their own campaign being the subject of a FISA warrant and a special investigator.

The media will double-down on its attack. Collusion may be dead but the media has already focused on the issue of obstruction of justice. What does this charge of obstruction actually mean? Does it mean, as it did with Bill Clinton, that Trump directed people to lie to investigators? Or does it mean he obstructed justice by firing Comey? Jerry Nadler and other Dems will keep this distinction vague.

The mainstream press did a great job of turning mistaken, but fundamentally decent, citizens into raving maniacs. It was an amazing job of propaganda. There is a parallel job going on with Brexit in the UK. Two new terms have been introduced into common parlance there: "informed vote" and "meaningful vote".

An informed vote is a vote which the powers that be hope will go their way, where the last one didn't. I suppose in the UK it means that people will despair so much of their own own government and Parliament that they will prefer rule by unelected Europeans.

A meaningful vote is a vote whetre he government hopes that Parliament will do what it wants this time.

How many times can they try to harass and shame people who are ultimately right? The skeptics on this, the skeptics on Dan Rather, the skeptics on Hillary's health, the skeptics on the UVA rape, the skeptics on Duke Lacrosse, the skeptics on Jussie Smollet, the skeptics on the gay-based version of the Pulse night club shooting, the skeptics on Kavanaugh as a teen rapist.

Instead of stating a case, people vilify people who ultimately have turned out to be right. How many *more* times can they do it before we catch on (I'm thinking about the way they call people "climate-deniers", and it looks to me like they are on the shaming path for that issue, too)

"Either you did it on purpose or you're so insane and incompetent that you're not worth reading at all."

Quit with the either/or approach. No group so large is that completely insane or incompetent. They did it on purpose. With the guidance of the Democrats. And will continue to. Why? Just look at the usual suspects here who lap this shit up like mother's milk. That's why.

THE MEDIA’S DISGRACE:“Never has so little come of so many screaming chyrons. Every mini-scooplet was played up like major news, and if you went on air and said that collusion was unlikely and we should wait for the evidence, you were often treated like you were in the tank for Trump. The last two years have been a disgrace, and no one should forget it.”

And these same propogandists are still desperately clinging to their propaganda.

It is all click-bait now. The economics of the mass media have deteriorated to the point where every piece of content must scream for attention, every individual provider must be a "brand," and every national newspaper/network must super-serve a narrow target audience. None of which encourages sober reflection or objective consideration. (My career was in radio and television - not the content side, but close enough.)

Taibbi, something of an outsider, says it plain. Farhi is bargaining, offering his colleagues a lifeline. In my opinion, the mainstream press destroying its credibility in the eyes of many people is a social good. It's a thoroughly corrupted institution and the more who think so, the better off we'll be. While this state of affairs is deeply upsetting to people like my father who until recently held people in high office and with major platforms in esteem, I'm pleased, and not nihilistically. Burn it down, build it better.

@benwikler 1h1 hour agoMoreRemember how Trump was absolutely obsessed with getting rid of Jeff Sessions because he wanted an Attorney General who would protect him from the Mueller probe? And then how he got one? I don’t know what’s in the report. But people, don’t we know what Barr’s job is?

Ben Wikler‏Verified account

@benwikler 10h10 hours agoMoreCan someone explain to me why anyone should have a single iota of confidence that Barr’s summary of the Mueller report isn’t total hogwash?

I still think about that Maddow viewer who shot up the Republican softball game and declared Trump “a traitor.” Nobody is holding Maddow accountable for that, and she is making a ton of money stoking people’s fears. MSNBC is making money from it.

This makes me think of the "fact checker" columns where the term "misleading" is used where they can't say "false." For example, Trump says something completely true, but there's some other, related point that he could have made but didn't. That gets rated "misleading."

At the risk of perseveration, I'm asking you, as a law-talking gal, if it was proper for Mueller to use the word "exonerate". Was he using it as a technical, legal term, or in an ordinary, common sense way? Either way, it seems wrong. If he meant it in a strictly legal sense, he was stepping outside his lane as a prosecutor. If he meant it in the vernacular way, he was giving credence to those who would say, "I can't prove it, but I know he's guilty", and he may have been insinuating that himself.

Somewhere on election night I read “If schabenfreude had calories I’d weigh 900 pounds”.And now, after the last couple days I’m easily at a ton and a half. Gonna have to call my doctor for blood work to see how shadenfreude affects cholesterol, diabetic numbers, etc.

This always made no sense, but they went on in an obsessive/compulsive mode that resembles mental illness. Ahab does the same thing in Moby Dick, but at least there was a whale.

Glenn Greenwald posted a compilation video today that is hilarious in the earnest vapidity of "news" people and their charlatan guests.

What about the posters here who clung to hope, and who still want to chew on that "obstruction" rag? I can't figure out who is thinking for themselves and who is paid to be here. Many of them seem to have immediate access to well organized talking points, but maybe they just read Democratic Underground, or Media Matters, or MoveOn.org before they come here. Maybe they are on email lists that give them access to talking points and links.

In any case, my message to them is: No collusion! Keep plucking that chicken!

I don't think you can fault them too heavily. The circle of indictments and convictions kept leading ever closer to Trump himself. Getting his attorney was a major deal, and it was not unthinkable that he could have gotten his kids and/or son-in-law. The obstruction finding was inconclusive; I don't think that's vindicating. The media should back off the Russia issue, but there's still no reason to take his regard for rule-of-law seriously.

The media is defeated because they keep thinking they can politically destroy the guy with moderate/corporate Democrats, and they can't. His rise is a function of corporate politics and its failure. And his defeat can only come from the same progressivism that he pretends to champion - only done right and with reality.

Now...since TDS (Orange Man Bad!!!!) has stricken them, they are bitter, sour, unhappy, combative, argumentative, illogical, obsessed with Trump, obsessed with Russia and all the other Left Wing weirdness. They have become just plain crazy. They are unpleasant to be around.

IOW, they have become just like Trump himself! In every aspect!

The irony of not seeing this as as lost on the corporate Democrats as it is on Trump's enablers.

If you like Trump, you should like these detractors you describe. They're just like he is.

"the Trump-resistance media has deliberately blurred it and actively diverted us from it . . . Either you did it on purpose or you're so insane and incompetent that you're not worth reading at all."

It's good to see Althouse moving away from the how-could-they, it's-so-sad piecemeal approach to MSM machinations and toward a systemic understanding of the structural problems. Next step: seeing the political point of what a nice, reasonable reader perceives as "incompetence." There is no either/or. They do it all "on purpose." Sometimes their pursuit of their purpose backfires, either because facts stand in the way or because a portion of the public can still laugh at their folly, but failure only fires them up. Trump's vindication will fuel the next round of vilification.

The people who wanted Trump impeached are mad at the people who have been telling them for two years that it was going to happen. It's not the fault of the people who bought it for believing what they wanted to believe. No, it's the media's fault for telling them.

Which is bullshit. If you aren't skeptical enough at this late date to question EVERYTHING coming out of a newsroom, you deserve the moments of cognitive dissonance which will keep landing on you like cartoon anvils. Trump gets elected after everyone you know votes against him. He is cleared of Russian collusion. Etc.

Either wake the fuck up or watch Trump get reelected because you won't take him seriously.

Yes, the “fact check” BS was the beginning of fake news. So obviously distorted spin. In your face boldness like never seen before.

Had to be AxelrodObama behind it. Sure seemed like their style.

“Trump said ‘no collusion’ but even tho Mueller found no collusion we’re going to say he’s ‘misleading’ or ‘partly false’ because He didn’t say anything about obstruction and Because this was just an investigation, not an acquittal after trial.

Very glad to hear that Brennan is showing signs that he knows just how deep the doo-doo is for him now. I suspect him of being the director of this tawdry show. Not the producer; this was set in motion by the Clinton machine, and perhaps the Obama White House, but almost certainly the guy who was called on to make it happen. Perhaps he can be turned and testify against the puppet masters. If not, crush him.

On a related matter, I have one question that should be directed again and again at every principal member of this investigation who protests that they were just doing their jobs, and making a good faith effort on the basis of the evidence they were given: If the counterintelligence apparatus was so convinced that the Russians were trying to get to him through his campaign underlings, some of them quite low-ranking, why did Trump never receive what’s called a “Defensive Briefing”? That omission bespeaks a gravely nefarious intent that was widely shared by all involved. In other words, I think it’s prima facie proof of a conspiracy.

DJT is about to leverage this mother of all snafus into a defense to the Dems #1 tool which has been their fraudulent methods of Counting the ballots or not counting the ballots which allows them to rig the elections. As I recall, Soros has dumped billions into winning the Secretary of State posts in key states. He has paid for them all to become mini-Broward Counties.

I hope so but fear thew worst. It is interesting that all GOP Congress people in Orange County CA were defeated on "late votes" coming in a week after the election.

BUT The Board of Supervisors in OC still has 5 of 6 Republicans. The last one still in doubt won his race last week. This suggests to me that the B of S was not a target of the vote harvesters. Why would the county elect all Democrats in Congress but stay Republican in the local races?

Althouse sounds righteously indignant. Most of us do have enhanced negative views of the DBC-media for the incompetence/evil they have revealed in themselves. Failing to accept the exoneration by Rosenstein and Barr is just a furtherance of their petty corrupt news practices.

I have to step back and admire the phrase, "dismal, entropic experience". These things fit together so well, why haven't I ever read this before?

Exonerate: Yes, the press will have a sudden, new-found appreciation with the literal meaning of this word. They will conveniently forget that they have been routinely using it in connection with death row inmates having their conviction overturned. They have not been suddenly found innocent. They can even be put on trial again.

I ask "who will hold the comedians accountable?" Russian collusion has suffused the late night comedy shows from the beginning. Why were they so sure? Why were they allowed to spread their poison by wrapping it up as jokes?

Mike said...Failing to accept the exoneration by Rosenstein and Barr is just a furtherance of their petty corrupt news practices. --They are working very hard to bury the inconvenient fact that Rosenstein formally recommended Comey getting axed.Not that it was required to allow Trump to fire an employee.

If an organization purposefully lies to people about important things, and I think it was on purpose, that makes them the "enemy of the people".

Trump is the luckiest in his Ximenes and the most unlucky in friends.

Half the country has been lied to 24 hours a day for years now. If the media had not been so dishonest, this country would have few problems, and we would be even better off than we are by a long shot. If not for that one thing, we would be living in a golden age here and now, and the rest of the world would be safer and richer. These people who have lied all these years are beyond contempt. I think it true that the Press at this time is this nation's worst enemy. Our international enemies use them as willing weapons knowing how easily they can be used to sow dissent and backstage effective policy. I'm certain they laugh at us about it all the time. Russia played them like a fiddle, while the media blamed the very people who didn't get played.

The fact is, they did do it on purpose. I don't see any anger in the media at anyone on the left for taking advantage of their innocent, slack-jawed credulity. That's because no one did. They were fully and eagerly complicit in the ongoing attempt to hamstring and hopefully destroy the President.

So now the investigations into what really happened begin. As Graham said to Comey "See you soon". How will the MSM handle the upcoming news that the highest levels of government colluded? I'd think they can't just ignore it any longer. We'll see.

Either you did it on purpose or you're so insane and incompetent that you're not worth reading at all.

Some did it on purpose; others really are that insane and/or incompetent.

Most just followed th crowd, and gave their readers (and editors) what they thought was wanted. The media landscape is shearing off people by the day; you can either get in line or work in an office someplace.

Part of the reason for constant MSM "Trump is guilty" over past couple of years was to influence Mueller to find something.

Anybody who did not agree is shunned and ridiculed by their peers.

Despite being unclear about obstruction, Mueller and his team have disappointed many, many rich and famous influencers.

The idea that Trump and Putin worked together was and is just stupid.

Personally surprised Mueller did not come up with some bullshit stretch of the imagination misdeeds. Guess the extremely pathetic obstruction thing is best they could do.

And, seriously, it is one thing for some commenters to continue to gleefully accuse Trump and his friends and family in order to generate a back and forth argument for fun and personal entertainment but quite another to actually believe the accusations, which are generally offensive in their stupidity.

This makes me think of the "fact checker" columns where the term "misleading" is used where they can't say "false." For example, Trump says something completely true, but there's some other, related point that he could have made but didn't. That gets rated "misleading."

There may be a good example of what Althouse posits here. But I cannot think of one. And Althouse didn’t link to one.

Althouse sez: I don't even want to spend my time watching this phony hand-wringing over what went wrong. Either you did it on purpose or you're so insane and incompetent that you're not worth reading at all.

I speak for many when I say we absolutely love your keen legal insight into all matters, legal and political. But I fear you are missing a much deeper and more profound legal investigation than that silly 'ole Mueller inquest of the Russian conspiracy to rig democracy.

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

Clearly, Mr. Trump is violating the Emolument clause, either by building a Casino in Russia or something else.

Prof. Althouse, we must get to the bottom of this investigation. We need to impanel a Grand Jury. We need hearings. We need Subpoenas. Most of all, we need your keen mind to help us navigate these treacherous legal waters.

Emoluments have no place in our Constitutional Republic. We must identify and ferret out all Emoluments in our government. And if our Department of Justice won't act, concerned law professors, such as Laurence Tribe must act.

Mueller is so yesterday. Russian efforts to sow discord in our democracy? I say mehBut Emoluments? These are a dire threat to our country. We must emphatically say NO to Emoluments. Please join us in our fight to save democracy.

mockturtle said...[Althouse admits: But I scan the headlines and I pretty much know what's in the text. ]

Try reading the entire text. You may be surprised to find that the article bears little congruence to the affixed headline.

I suspect she means because she assumes the headline will be as beneficial to the left as it can be she can accurately surmise the contents: which are just as you describe. She obviously does not conclude what the headline writers want readers to believe.

We are still left. with the fact that the Obama adminstration appears to have abused the Patriot Act. for political purposes in just the way that Democrats feared it would be abused, because at the time, they were not in control, it would seem today.

But after the nearly two-year investigation found no collusion or clear obstruction of justice, Trump and his aides showed little interest in healing or national unity. - Politico

I mean, come on, this stuff is seriously funny. Next do Schiff! Oh, wait....

And see how Mueller left them the scope to smear Trump with “clear obstruction of justice” He knew he couldn’t support the charge so he handed it off to Barr, whom he knew would be percieved as partisan, to make the obvious. conclusion, but if Barr does it, nobody will accept it.

Lindsey Graham just held a remarkable press conference, and I highly recommend it. Now that the scrutiny of the President is completed, he intends to seek scrutiny of the other side of the story; the potential abuse of the FISA process; potential corruption of the DOJ/FBI, etc.

Nice to see one American politician who can speak coolly and rationally. Hope he can see this through.

Blogger Dave Begley said...“Lynch, Comey, McCabe, Strozk et al should be worried. Very worried. The axe is about to fall.”

From my post to a previous thread:

Lindsey Graham (reply to comey)✔@LindseyGrahamSC

Could not agree more.

See you soon.

I do think that “See you soon” was a threat by someone who is in the know (chair of the Senate Judiciary committee) to someone who should, now, be very, very, worried. I think that Sen Graham was saying that it is our turn now. The key here is not precisely the report, but rather that the Mueller investigation is now officially over, without having touched Trump. The report just signals that the investigation is over. Why is that important? One of the threads that keeps showing up throughout the Congressional testimony last year by the DoJ and esp FBI people about FISAgate, the Steele Dossier, etc, was that they were not allowed by the government attorneys representing either organization to talk on this subject or that subject, because of an ongoing investigation - the Mueller investigation. With the recent publications of mostly unredacted Congressional testimony of Ohr, Page, etc, it is pretty clear that the Mueller investigation was being used by the Deep State, esp in the FBI, to hide their fairly egregious law breaking in these areas, probably running at least from late spring of 2016 up through much of 2017, and possibly extending, esp with the CIA, back into 2015. The big question for me is not whether the Mueller investigation was utilized to shield FBI (esp) and DoJ insiders from accountability for their criminal and highly partisan actions, but whether that was the primary purpose of the Mueller investigation. The other big reason behind it, in my mind, was bureaucratic revenge for firing the FBI director, who has been almost above the law since J Edgar Hoover.

I expect that the next shoe to drop will be another OIG report or two. They were tasked with investigating illegal leaking (hello, James Comey) and the FISA warrants on Carter Page. We were expecting a report late last summer, but that kept getting delayed. We don’t really know why, but the Mueller investigation seemingly did affect how much could be publicly disclose in the previous OIG reports. The big scandal, the elephant in the room, is the abuse of FISA in particular, both database searching under Title VII and electronic surveillance under Title I, by the Obama Administration working with elements of the Deep State. Both FISA scandals lead back to the Obama White House. UN Ambassador Power’s credentials were utilized hundreds of times to unmask US Persons with no discernible legitimate counterintelligence or counter terrorism rationale. She denies that she did it. That unmasking was thus very likely criminal. And text messages, between McCabe and Lisa Page (hidden from even Congress until very recently) and between Strzok and Page show White House meetings involving the original FISA warrant application for Carter Page in early October of 2016. Also of note, a lot of the paperwork for that warrant application was apparently rushed through and rubber stamped because it had been preapproved by DD McCabe and DAG Yates (according to Congressional testimony last fall by multiple people, including Page). Of course, it wasn’t just the FBI and DoJ, because the Brennan CIA appears to have provided the predicates required to open the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, as well as very likely having been behind running Misfyd, Downer, and Halper at the Trump campaign. And the Kerry State Dept provided the legitimate routing of the Steele Dossier from the CIA to the FBI.

The question has been there all along, but the Trump-resistance media has deliberately blurred it and actively diverted us from it. I don't even want to spend my time watching this phony hand-wringing over what went wrong. Either you did it on purpose or you're so insane and incompetent that you're not worth reading at all.

Some are stupid.

Some are evil.

The most important thing now is that this is not over.

A political party, corrupt federal bureaucracy, and co-conspirators in the media conspired to lie to a Federal International Surveillance Court to get a FISA warrant to spy on an opposing party nominee during an election.

They then used their illegal spying to launch a Stalinist attack on people who opposed them.

These people are all traitors and seditionists. They attempted to destroy the foundations of our Republic.

It is impossible to underestimate the effects that this speech had on the Left of the time. It was an admission at the highest level of the Soviet government that the charges that the "deviationalists & counter-revolutionaries" had leveled against the Stalinist regime were basically true.

The speech hit the world-wide Left like a nuclear bomb in their midst. Many Communists committed suicide. It was the final nail in the coffin for the CPUSA. The wife of the Secretary-General of the CPUSA later admitted that after she read the report she sat in the dark & cried for four hours, knowing that "everything she had believed for the past 25 years was a lie". The most important effect of all was that it finalized the split between the Chinese & Soviet Communist Parties, since Mao idolized Stalin & distrusted Khrushchev even more now that he had thrown Stalin under the bus.

The effects of the Mueller Report are just now starting. The reckoning for those who took the country on this wild goose chase for two & a half years will take years to play out, as the Senate & any Executive Branch investigations will take a long time. But, on its face, the Mueller Report just gave Trump a metaphorical Louisville Slugger to use on political & media opponents in the next election. I can just hear Trump now: "They lied. They all lied to you to poison your mind against me. And they're lying again now. Stop the lies & vote for me & MAGA!".

The media hacks are empowered by their audience. Some of those 'shitty people" have been posting their nonsense right here.

It sounds like you are okay with squelching talk about IQ on your blog (you're wrong about that btw), but in your contempt for the recent Circus of Fools, would you even consider squelching those here who have subjected your blog to this Russian bullshit for the last 2 years?

Why one but not the other? Will they suffer no consequence and be allowed to carry on with No Shame as if It Never Happened (my two horses from the post-Mueller Exacta prediction).

A modicum of credibility for the media would be a very desirable thing.Free advice to MSM:

Review your last two years on the Russia, Russia, Russia story:Identify everyone who said they have EVIDENCE of collusion. Either BAN them from your airwaves for (say) a year, or challenge them each and every time they appear and make a strong assertion.

If someone (say, just for a whim) a former CIA Director wraps himself in that title and implies he has inside evidence, CALL HIM OUT, today. Never, ever have him on again.Look at the panels you used. Where there ever any real conservatives? Were there panels where there was NO dissent? That is a problem.

Sit in a round table with your staff and compare your anonymous sources. Which of them misled you. Stop using them except when they are secondary sources.Get curious about the other side of this coin, e.g. FISA warrants.Stop with the "some say", "it could be", "Trump (or anyone else) is REALLY thinking..." What follows is inevitably opinion, not news.

Something dangerous and potentially crippling to our government has been going on for the last 3 years, but this is not a black swan event but rather the progression that has been moving apace for decades. Possibly what we are seeing is just part of what John Adams meant:

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation."

Conservatives are those who wish to keep institutions and systems in place. They value the predicable and comfortable.

Progressives (often mislabeled liberals), want change. To them there is always something wrong with "today", and it is so bad that radical change is the only way to fix it. By definition, progressives must break what exists because there is always a better solution out there somewhere. To deny that reality is to be evil (the evil comes in many forms, racist, sexist, etc. It does not have to be true, but one can always find a victim of the status quo and prove the holders of the status quo to be the enemy of the victim.)

I have always said that progressives drive a train that can never stop, and conservatives are the people who have decided that it has gone far enough and thus get off. At some point you have to realize that change is not always good, and in fact can do more harm. You realize that institution X might harm a person, but destroying institution X harms 100 persons.

Others like this cliche:

A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality.

Democrats and the media have been so focused on remaking America into some utopia that they are willing to burn down the whole house to bring about the change. They will destroy the institution of the presidency by manufacturing a false accusation and covering up real ones. They will destroy the very system of government because they cannot use the system to gain what they want. They will cheat at elections and they will destroy the opposition with false claims. The democrats can get away with it because the media supports and abets the actions because they too want what the democrats want.

Thus if you do not condemn and the blatant and partisan actions of the media, then you are agreeing to a system of power in America that defends "the ends justifies the means". You will agree that a civil system of fair elections and unbiased information is irrelevant so long as your ideas win. In essence this is to support dictatorship.

The left controlled institutions, almost to a one, fall on the side of restricting debate and freedom. If you value any of those institutions because you agree with some sort of social justice goal that you have, then you are advocating the abolishment of the rule of law and the advocacy of dictatorship as a means of government.

It means that you cannot win with your ideas, you have to use force.

I say that this debacle called Russian collusion is proof that you are being mugged. Get off the train. Condemn the democrat/media alliance and abandon support for all left institutions until they understand that only through the free exchange of ideas and a peaceful transition of power can we survive as a democracy. To fail to do so is to participate in devolution of the American experiment.

Either you did it on purpose or you're so insane and incompetent that you're not worth reading at all."

As others above have said embrace the power of the word and. That said, you would be less misinformed if you were to get your news from the National Enquirer and Infowars. Now the question becomes what comes next in this scandal? Will the Trump Administration proceed to name a special counsel to investigate this scandal from its very roots in the Obama Administration and the Clinton Campaign? As a national service this should occur. Not only to expose corruption but to so embarrass the press that it loses what's left of its credibility and is forced to reform itself with actual journalists and not shills and propagandists if it wishes to survive as The Press instead of PR flacks for the Left.

....in your contempt for the recent Circus of Fools, would you even consider squelching those here who have subjected your blog to this Russian bullshit for the last 2 years?

Why one but not the other? Will they suffer no consequence and be allowed to carry on with No Shame as if It Never Happened (my two horses from the post-Mueller Exacta prediction).

Please, never ever squelch the useful idiots. While I read this blog, and many commenters to become educated and informed, I am also delighted to read the comments by the "others" because they make me feel smarter and (although poorly educated) somewhat intellectually superior

So what? Trump has his own reasons for answering the question the way he did. Clearly Mueller didn’t act honorably or he wouldn’t have left that poison pill of “could not prove him innocent so have at him Dems!” That’s some standard of justice you have for Americans you don’t like, for a lawyer.

I like the Taibi column for the most part, but he is way off base on comparing it to Iraq WMDs. There's no shortage of documentation that the WMD issue was a massive intelligence failure, not a Big Lie. The MSM went along with what the Intelligence Community (*spit*) was saying.

For anyone who still believes Trump is Putin’s lap dog, the US recently deployed 6 B-52s to Europe, the largest deployment of that aircraft to Europe since 2003, as a counter to Russia flying their planes near Alaska. The B-52s are temporarily based in the UK, but they showed one being refueled over Romania, as it flew along the Russian border.

Seems like people want other people to ignore and forget all the strange Trump/Russia “love” for the last two years that was going on in full view, as if it never happened. People suspected him mostly because of his OWN behavior toward Putin.

I call fake news on the assertion that the question is just coming into focus! The question has been there all along, but the Trump-resistance media has deliberately blurred it and actively diverted us from it. I don't even want to spend my time watching this phony hand-wringing over what went wrong. Either you did it on purpose or you're so insane and incompetent that you're not worth reading at all.

Althouse,

I appreciate you sentiments. Thank you

I think you know they did it on purpose, but that means adopting Insty's view of the media.

You are a shining example for thoughtful liberals. They need to move on and focus on policy issues that are obscured by TDS.

I've had some pointed criticism of AA in the past, but her comments: "....Either you did it on purpose or you're so insane and incompetent that you're not worth reading at all..." are straight-forward and 100% correct.

I see no discussion of the possibility that Mueller loaded his team with Democrats, even rabid Democrats, so that the Russia collusion hoax, which he knew was bullshit, when debunked could not be attributed to a Republican dominated investigation,

Probably thinking too much but it is an interesting theory.

Also, AOC owes delinquent taxes, just like Tank Abrams, <a href="https://www.rga.org/georgia-democrat-stacey-abrams-owes-voters-answers-tax-scandal/> who owes even more taxes.</a>

I bet Trump feels great right now! I'm just remembering how I felt after he was elected and I did not vote for him but I really hated Hillary and I was euphoric for almost a week. The area I live in is pretty liberal but the day after the election I was walking my dog and a woman was walking towards me and she smiled and then I smiled and then she smiled really big and so did I and I could tell we were communicating soundlessly that we were both ecstatic that Hillary lost. Euphoria. And I bet that's nothing to what Trump's feeling right now

“They need to move on and focus on policy issues that are obscured by TDS.”

Speaking of DS...

“President Donald Trump warned that unspecified “people” who prompted Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation would be investigated, and said he wouldn’t object if the special counsel’s report is publicly released. Unnamed people had done “treasonous things,” Trump said. “Those people will certainly be looked at. They lied to Congress. It was a false narrative.”

Ponder for a moment how incredibly stupid one would have to be to not know ANY of the above AND completely buy into the moronic and obviously fake hoax dossier and hoax collusion..and STILL believe them!!!

Inga, the State's handmaiden and our Gal from Mensa, states: "Seems like people want other people to ignore and forget all the strange Trump/Russia 'love' for the last two years that was going on in full view, as if it never happened. People suspected him mostly because of his OWN behavior toward Putin."

And you can that be sure that there never has been any foe of the Kremlin as dogged as Inga. You know, until the party line changed.

Young HegelianFascinating comparison to the secret speech, but I think also quite wrong. The disillusioned communists were just that disillusioned. They had really had illusions. They had beliefs in which they invested. The press, the Left, Beto — these people had no illusions, no beliefs: they had a pretext, a talking point, a bloody shirt to wave. Snatch it away and they will move on.Yes, I am calling them less intellectually honest than stalinists.

"Remember when Trump supporters chanted “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton...Why were they not respecting the decision of law enforcement and prosecutors not to indict her? Why did they not believe that the failure to indict Clinton was an exoneration?"

You mean like encouraging fracking and undermining his natural gas monopoly in Europe? You mean by approving Keystone XL and bringing all of that oil on the market to compete with his Russian crude? Stuff like that?

People think all kinds of things based on prejudice, political biases, superstition, etc, etc, etc, but when the facts have been exhaustively examined, reasonable people accept that result. Notice I said “reasonable,” which is not everybody. Since I understand something about logic, I know that there will be bitter clingers and dead enders on collusion for a long long time. Especially when there is so much money in stoking it for Rachael “Cash Cow" Maddow, the whole Collusion and Conspiracy Network, the New York Times, Washington Post, etc, etc, etc....

“We saw a young black man walk by an Asian Market so there must have been a robbery! Call the cops!” Is that the kind of world Democrats want us to live in, where political opponents are prosecuted for “suspected” crimes? My take away is that as long as the weapon is only turned on Republicans, “Yes please!"

Inga said:Seems like people want other people to ignore and forget all the strange Trump/Russia “love” for the last two years that was going on in full view, as if it never happened. People suspected him mostly because of his OWN behavior toward Putin.

Don't just repeat the conspiracy theories. I have seen the WAPO make this claim many times, but right now their credibility is in the garbage.

Why don't you just detail the pro-Russian policies he has implemented, compare them to the anti-Russian policies he has implemented, and then bench mark them against Barack "i'll have more flexibility after the Election" Obama's policies.

Seems like people want other people to ignore and forget all the strange Trump/Russia “love” for the last two years that was going on in full view, as if it never happened. People suspected him mostly because of his OWN behavior toward Putin.

Seems like people want other people to ignore and forget all the strange Trump/Russia “love” for the last two years that was going on in full view, as if it never happened.

You mean like repositioning missiles that Obama pulled because Putin didn't like it?You mean pressuring NATO to increase military spending against a Russian assault?You mean like increasing oil and gas production which lowers the value of Russia's chief export?There's more, lots more.

Yeah, pretty torrid affair. And, I agree, in plain sight, if you ever cared to look.

Inga said, "Seems like people want other people to ignore and forget all the strange Trump/Russia “love” for the last two years that was going on in full view, as if it never happened. People suspected him mostly because of his OWN behavior toward Putin."

What strange Trump/Russia love was that? Trump seems to have been pretty unconcerned about Russia, either as a friend or foe. In my mind that's a good thing.

What you have the last two years is a body of people intent on fitting every dumb thing Trump said or did to a predefined narrative. The narrative has been found, unequivocally, to be false. You think Trump was trolling you by not going all Joe McCarthy?

Althouse's last sentence sums it all up, perfectly. They are all useless and the only question, for those who care about such things, is on what basis: dishonesty, stupidity, or derangement.

Not to ignore the possibilities of "and."

A good time for liberals and NeverTrumpers to familiarize them selves with Michael Crichton's "Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect." Not that they have to support Trump--plenty of reasons not to, lack of collusion aside. But anyone with half a brain would NEVER trust the MSM again. (They will though, I guess because they have only sub-half-brains.)

“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”

When your partisan identity becomes so closely tied to your personal identity, information that challenges your political beliefs becomes a more existential threat — changing your mind or even admitting you might be wrong feels like a major betrayal. So partisans come to believe that their side has to be right — it just has to be — because the alternative is unthinkable.

Like polarization itself, the problem isn’t symmetrical on right and left. “Tribal epistemology,” as my colleague Dave Roberts terms it, is far more prevalent on the right, with media organizations like Fox News dedicated to selling comforting, often false, informationto viewers. - VOX

"Seems like people want other people to ignore and forget all the strange Trump/Russia “love” for the last two years that was going on in full view, as if it never happened. People suspected him mostly because of his OWN behavior toward Putin."

What you saw was called diplomacy, and you'd have screamed a fit if he hadn't practiced it.

As for his actions, can you name one policy that Trump has enacted that Putin would be in favor of? Because I can list 10 without even having to think hard that both Obama and Hillary advanced that Putin absolutely loved, and every single thing Trump has done, Trump should despise.

The Farthi article was buried in the "lifestyle" section in the Post and had barely over 250 comments when I first read it - now only 625 when the "usual" Trump did it story gets thousands of comments.

It's more of a compendium of the articles by major bloggers like Tabbi or Greenwald that are scourging the Press rather than an admission of guilt. And Denial is Strong in the comments!

I listened in the gym this morning to Smerconish - a CNN creature - try to claim that he had been "balanced" in his coverage over the last 2 years. All I learned was that guy has a running sore mouth and is "really convinced" that Barr is trying to pull a fast one. And Collusion is SO YESTERDAY too! We just should be rejoicing that Trump didn't work with the mean old Russians. But bring up Steele and the DNC and it's - I see nothing time.

"People suspected him mostly because of his OWN behavior toward Putin."

I know I went full speed on ramping up US energy production, and sadly whacked a bunch of your mercenaries in Syria, but Baby you know I love you. Baby, I had to do it. It was for your own good. You know that right? Yes, yes you do. Now get back out on the street like a good girl. Don't make me slap you around again.

Or alternately, the commenter believes that all the kissing that goes on in mob movies is because the characters love each other and have their best interests at heart.

Some commenters are keeping hope alive, when it has joined the choir eternal.

The Lindsay Graham presser today was interesting, because he said "It is time to look at the other side of all this, and I intend to do it. The lack of curiosity among the reporters, none of whom have been reading Althouse or Instapundit, let alone The Conservative Tree House, was both predictable and appalling. They really are chumps, living in a world of DNC talking points. Someone actually asked Graham if he had a conflict of interest because he was a Republican.

Fortunately, Senator Graham and President Trump have other plans, and the DOJ, the FBI, the FISA Court, the Clinton Email process, etc. are going to get a thorough review.

Anyone heard from Heber or Horowitz? I hope Trump is as calculating as I think he is.

Seriously, while I think that there are grifters & poseurs among the groups you listed ("The press, the Left, Beto"), I think that many of them sincerely believe that Trump is a menace to the country, a menace that from their point of view just came out of nowhere.

I think that most of them are every bit as morally sincere & ever bit as deluded as the pro-Soviet Left of the pre-1956 was. We may have to agree to disagree on this point, because I'm not quite sure what would count as confirming empirical evidence one way or the other.

"'DJT is about to leverage this mother of all snafus into a defense to the Dems #1 tool which has been their fraudulent methods of Counting the ballots or not counting the ballots which allows them to rig the elections. As I recall, Soros has dumped billions into winning the Secretary of State posts in key states. He has paid for them all to become mini-Broward Counties.'

I hope so but fear thew worst. It is interesting that all GOP Congress people in Orange County CA were defeated on "late votes" coming in a week after the election.

BUT The Board of Supervisors in OC still has 5 of 6 Republicans. The last one still in doubt won his race last week. This suggests to me that the B of S was not a target of the vote harvesters. Why would the county elect all Democrats in Congress but stay Republican in the local races?

Vote harvesting is going to be the big issue in 2020."

Same thing happened here in WI. Last minute votes came in from Milwaukee County that put Tony Evers and Josh Kaul in key offices but didn't appear to affect other state races. It may be that the local races in the county were reliably (D), but the large number of 'found' votes seems strange to me.

"As it is it sure looks like he was a traitor and co-conspirator who helped democrats get a FISA warrant to spy on a political opponent because he didn't like Trump."

Inga: "Speaking of DS, now we see McCain Derangement Syndrome..."

It is not in dispute that McCain helped democrats get a FISA warrant to spy on a domestic political opponent, whom he did not like, and he did it by sending his senior staffer to a foreign nation to get tainted, made up, hoax-y, lucicrous, stupid, moronic, Putin-crony-supplied smears/lies which McCain then helped to weaponize against the domestic political opponent precisely as Putin (and democrats, surprise surprise) wanted.

What's the definition the lefties have been using for the last 3 years for treason and traitorous activity?

Take your time answering Inga. I wouldn't want you to blow a gasket...since your replacement would probably have to be ordered from Moscow.

"Seems like people want other people to ignore and forget all the strange Trump/Russia “love” for the last two years that was going on in full view, as if it never happened. People suspected him mostly because of his OWN behavior toward Putin."

It's TRUMPS fault. Hahaha! I just hope this kind of stupidity is not contagious.

OK, allow me to further flog that poor dead horse: The percentage of FISA applications approved since the agency's inception 36 years ago is 99.9. Shouldn't there be a reasonable expectation of just cause to approve? Don't tell me that, out of 38,169 applications, 38,157 met that expectation!

"People suspected him mostly because of his OWN behavior toward Putin."

One of Hillary Clinton's myriad explanations is that she criticized Putin about the Russian election processes, so he decided to kick her ass. Maybe Trump decided that tough talk is not always productive.

Inga wrote: People suspected him mostly because of his OWN behavior toward Putin.

Notice that Inga doesn't quantify "people". That could mean just one, assuming that a sewn-together concoction of mismatched limbs topped by Abby Normal's brain can be classified as vaguely people-like.

No, because of the way the news media, late nite comedy, etc, etc, etc described and spun his “behavior” towards Putin. Anybody with a functioning brain knows that Russia is a gas station with an Army and the worst thing that could happen to their economy, pretty much, is opening the gates of North American energy, something that makes Hillary, with her promise to all but end fracking, and keep Keystone XL dead, Putin’s first choice. Which is why he gave so many millions of dollars to her political operative parking constellation that she calls “The Clinton Foundation.”

If it bothers you that we keep bringing up Hillary, well she cooked up this whole Russia thing as a way to subvert the election and possibly flip electors in the Electoral College.

As I noted earlier, it also now includes nuclear capable B-52s flying down their borders with Europe. But my favorite was what we did to those 300 Russian mercenaries in Syria, who were there as Putin’s proxies. Ok, maybe to be more precise, 300 killed and another 300 so traumatized about what we did to the first 300, and how we did it, that they were rendered incapable of operating as a military force. By the time the dust settled, and the bodies were being counted, there were American units bitching because they hadn’t gotten a piece of the action. And seen by the world community as a big FU to Putin from Trump.